


We draw a line in the sand,  We say don't cross this or else (Take this from me, take this lonely heart )

by ImberReader



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brienne is a pragmatic romantic, F/M, Jaime doesn't know how to promise to live until he does, Mutual Pining, Post Dragonpit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22699336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberReader/pseuds/ImberReader
Summary: Brienne hasn't believed love itself is enough to defeat all obstacles for a long time.When Jaime comes to join the convoy returning North after Dragonpit, it's not about them loving each other - it's about survival.But maybe it can be about love, too.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 21
Kudos: 91





	We draw a line in the sand,  We say don't cross this or else (Take this from me, take this lonely heart )

**Author's Note:**

> This is unofficially dedicated to Roccolinde. She knows what she has done.
> 
> Vaguely inspired by word Mamihlapinatapei - The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move. I did not do it justice and might return to the concept. 
> 
> Title from [Take This Lonely Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_UzKgQrRPI) by Nothing but Thieves.
> 
> (Obviously) Not beta-d. We embarrass ourselves publicly like men. You can find me on [tumblr](https://scoundrels-in-love.tumblr.com/).

**I**

Brienne hasn’t believed love is enough in a long time.

Like a flower, this childish belief has gradually lost its colorful petals - blown away by harsher fall winds that had blown out candles of her mothers’ and infant sisters’ lives, trashed to ground by cold rain like waves had battered Galladon’s body against the cliffs, fallen away from the first touch of frost that her decision to leave had brushed upon her relationship with her father. 

Love could not carry you over the pits in the road or take you over the mountains life raised in your path. Only you yourself could  _try_ to overcome these obstacles, assisted by it’s sometimes gentle, sometimes bruising hand. 

She still carries imprints of those, they ache dully into the night when she could not sleep, when neither crackling of fire or familiar shuffling of camp settled down (but never quite at peace) could soothe her. 

Her love could not save Renly when he bled out in her arms, so far from his own beloved. 

Just as her oaths and beliefs could not save Lady Stark - or her late Lady’s love had not saved her family.

Much like Jaime, whose golden, cracked heart could not dispel darkness over Cersei’s mind with its glow. 

And, in turn, she could not follow its shine into the marshes, in hopes to find him and pull him back on safe, stable ground. 

Yet, she had dared to hope, for a brief moment in Dragonpit, when their traded glances held the weight of gathering storm clouds upon the horizon - they could dispel yet, giving way to a sun so bright it blinds in its play or unleash a storm that would devour fleets in minutes.

She had been blind, alright. But no sun had been present, except for the resplendent Lannister twins. And what cruel desert suns they could be. 

“Fuck loyalty,” she had told him, but now it tastes like salt and ash of burned would-bes in her mouth. Brienne would feel better if she could truly, honestly say she had meant it, without a single, passing thought of ‘fuck loyalty to _her_ , your sister, and maybe you will find a different sort loyalty in the smoking ruins of what Cersei has reduced your love to’. 

Selfish, even when she tried to do what is right, even when she tried to save him. 

And so, so godsdamn angry when she could not.

Podrick calls considerable amount of it upon himself, when she glares at the boy as he tumbles into her tent, red faced and out of breath.

“Ser Brienne, Ser Jaime just arrived with a handful of men and announced he has a meeting with you.”

**II**

Jaime looks slightly out of place in her tent, but that is less disconcerting than the fact he  _ is _ here and how much he still looks like he belongs. She has spent many years in war camps, too, but Brienne knows she looked a lot more misfit in his lavish Commander’s tent back in Riverrun. 

(She tries not to think about the implications of that, tries and fails.)

“I could have exposed your lie,” she tells him, plainly. The implied  _ should _ sways between them like an axe’s blade, edge of it glinting in the candle light. 

“But you didn’t.” 

“Do not make me regret it.”  _ She _ regrets immediately, for the flicker of doubt, an almost hurt that casts shadows over his eyes, dips into the lines of his face, making her think of all the pain that others have inflicted on him with their dismissals and accusations.

“Cersei does not intend to send her forces. I overheard her speaking with Qyburn, her rat of a Hand, about how she intended to keep me in the dark until the last possible moment.” 

He barrels on, which is for the best, because with a moment to speak or act, she might have walked up to cup his clenched jaw, take his fist in her hands until it warmed and melted open again under her touch. 

“I bade my time, took my most trusted men and raced to catch up with you. I doubted I would be given a chance to explain myself and enter the camp, so I lied and said this is what we had spoken about at Dragonpit.”

She knows there are countless questions to ask, about logistics, about how many men he had trusted and if they could indeed be trusted, about, about, about, but all that she has on her tongue is: “Why?”

It comes out quiet and paper thin, a rustle of dry leaves to reflect the drought in her mouth. 

Jaime walks forward, stops a step away from her, and she can see more clearly now how distraught he really is. It’s not even the way his beard is far from the well-maintained form it had been back at Dragonpit or the tension in his shoulders, his whole body, really. There is something broken and hopeful and  _ soft _ in his eyes, which she has only one word for, but not one she can give it.

She thinks he looks like a page torn from a book that hopes she will sew him back into another tome, instead of tossing him into the fire.

“If I have to go North and die fighting decayed monsters, at least we can do it together, Brienne.” 

She has been addressed in many ways and her name dragged through spit, blood and mud, but the way he says it now is as if he has washed it clean and is holding it tenderly. It lances through her heart, right next to where his solemn proclamation is buried hilt deep. 

“You are seeking out an honorable death, is that it?” Later she wonders if her voice rose in volume, but right now, all she can feel is anger as a wall built hastile in response to the hurt.

“We all die and this is perhaps one way I can actually be useful doing it.” She sees him closing up, too, retreating now that the conversation had spun out of his hands, though Brienne does not know where he had wanted to take it.   


“Ser Jaime, do you intend to live or to die?” He flinches at her use of his title, the moat she has haphazardly dug around herself filling with water rapidly. And yet, she still hopes he will give _something_ , so she can lower the drawbridge.

“You know none of us can intend much in a battlefield.” 

The gate falls shut and she knows Jaime  _ sees _ it, hope that has been crumbling already turned into foggy resignation and yet the softness stays.

“Very well, Ser Jaime. I will make necessary arrangements for the stay of you and your men. I am sure your brother will be happy to let you spend tonight in his tent.”

“Good night, Lady Brienne.”

**III**

Handful of men turn out to be a good fifty well armed and equally trained soldiers and while rest of the camp is vary of them initially, enough for them to be somewhat glorified prisoners, the trial which Brienne had worried for is seemingly postponed until they reach Winterfell and over the journey, the tension eases and connections are made.

She, too, finds herself making some - particularly with Jaime’s second in command, Addam Marbrand. Next morning, after she had finished training with Pod, he had strode over to her, all easy swagger and seemingly  _ genuine _ respect, introducing himself and pressing kiss to back of her hand as he told he had heard great many things of her valour and battle skills. 

Perhaps it is what he chooses to praise or his eagerness when sparring, or the way he lures a shadow of smile or a familiar scowl out of Jaime over stories he shares of their childhood that makes her feel more at ease around him than she normally would. 

Or maybe she spends time with him because it is closest to natural excuse she has to be near Jaime. At first, she had avoided him and he seemed to do the same, but then Addam had started dragging him to campfires and early morning spars. 

“If you intend to watch Lady Brienne’s six, you could do better than merely be a body shield for one or two wights,” he had said the first time, ignoring Jaime’s grimace (and earning a notch on her appreciation scale). 

After she and Addam are done with him, he has more than a remark to make faces about. But he grins and bears it, quite literally, and within a week he taunts them in return and the improvement is clear. Sometimes, she almost forgets where they are and what awaits them, with the way their swords sing and banter warms the space between them. Some of it is stilted still, bear pits of silences they stumble into, especially when it is just her and Jaime, the unspoken things just as dangerous as the beast that left its mark on her body. 

Especially so on quiet nights when they find themselves sitting together and gazing at the moon in her milky garden, promising cold weather. It makes her wonder if that single, wilted flower could’ve been part of an azalea instead, which now mistakes the warmth of his shoulder for the arrival of Spring. But the Winter is not just coming - it is already here.

**IV**

Though Winterfell is half-sunken in snow, something seems to thaw in Jaime after his trial has passed. There is uncertainty to him still, like he is a spring that hasn’t found the path it will carve out ahead just yet, but he throws himself into the preparations earnestly and his eyes glint with color of laughter (green of new leaves) more often. 

It feels selfish to seek him and Addam out, under guise of discussing strategies and overall progress, when she merely wants a moment of _breathing_ , away from everything that they’re actually supposed to think about. She draws in air so deeply, so greedily it actually hurts - hurts when Jaime’s hand hovers near hers as they stand on battlement and his smile is warmer than memories of sun, clouds on its edges because they know this is _not enough_. And he cannot give her more. 

Yet he does. 

Addam had mentioned her (lack of) knighthood before, but she had brushed him off. It is the last thing on her mind, when Jaime stands up abruptly after Tyrion mentions most of the people present have fought the Starks at one point, yet now they are united to defend their castle. 

“There would have been no one to truly reclaim it, if not for Lady Brienne, who brought Lady Sansa home,” he says, almost conversationally, but she can _sense_ the flood of certainty rolling generous waves within him. She fears she is the river banks it intends to swallow. 

“And if there is to be a new dawn, it deserves to be greeted by one true knight in these seven wretched kingdoms.” Jaime sets his cup down and moves to the center of the room, the sound of him unsheathing Widow’s Wail almost deafening in the quiet that has entangled everyone. 

“Kneel, Lady Brienne.” 

She wants to laugh it off, before he can, before someone says ‘women cannot be knights’, before -- but only he exists outside the silence and she has no voice. Somewhere, on the edges of her vision, Addam and Podrick smile at her with such pride and encouragement that it sweeps her off her chair and toward Jaime, like he is the lighthouse and the cliffs that could shatter her all at once. 

He guides her to the shore, gleaming in the firelight, and her legs wobble as her lip does when she stands up, now a knight. 

In that moment, love isn’t just enough, it is _everything_ , and all she can see is flurry of pink in golden sunlight.

**V**

Morning comes, but the night has taken many under her cold, silent wings. 

She has lost the count of how many times she thought it will carry away those dearest to her, instead it had become a rod of ice next to her backbone that hadn’t let her bend or break, or stop even for a moment as they fought through the Long Night. 

It still has not melted, almost a day later, because Addam is laying pale in a makeshift infirmary bed. Only for a moment, she had lost sight of him, but it could as well have been an infinity, because next time a wave of wights crested and fell apart, so was he crumbling to the ground. They had managed to drag him along as they were forced to retreat towards a wall, clinging to the ragged breath he still drew and the hope it could be over soon, but if the battle had lasted even half an hour more, he would have faded away propped against the stone, now uselessly protected by three swords. 

She has not seen him since they brought him to Maester that night, immediately overtaken by  duties, interrupted only by short and restless sleep where sometimes it was Jaime, sometimes Addam and even Podrick that fell (and then rose) in her dreams. But now she is here and so is Jaime, who has little else to do than to be by his friend’s bed and mend his own wounds.

He chides Brienne for looking as if she will keel over herself, has few choice words for Lady Sansa’s inability to manage even a day without her, and drags her on a stool next to his. Doesn’t let her hand go even afterward - it is rough and warm, and familiar somehow, though they have barely ever touched. As if all the countless dreams she has had have somehow become a piece of truth, reality, embedded in her body and mind. 

“Brienne, he will live,” Jaime tells her and she wants to tell him he cannot know that, not with the clarity he bears, but she smiles a little and nods in return, because it is good one of them can be so assured of it.

“And so will I.” His voice is almost solemn, trembling just a little like he isn’t sure if this promise is even wanted, though he _must_ , just as she had known his heart. And she thinks of the gaping abyss they still have yet to cross which love will not lift them gently over on its own, and of the way she cannot think of taking another step without his hand in hers, and then she is kissing him, soft and sweet and he _cannot_ taste like first warm spring rain, yet he somehow does.

“Could not wait until I am good enough to say  _ finally _ with all the panache it deserves, could you?” 

They startle apart, though Jaime’s hand stays on her shoulder, still drawing her closer even if it is awkward at this angle. Addam still looks pale, but she appreciates seeing his eyes again, the glimmer of mirth and relief making him seem more lively than he logically can be. 

When she stands to call Maester, she thinks she was right - love itself might not be enough. But when it is encased with support and trust and oaths that are hard to give but easy to uphold once said, and life that shall be lived and shared, it becomes something that makes roads and homes in impossible places. And somewhere in her heart, azalea blooms dizzyingly as the color drips back into the landscape.

**Author's Note:**

> If you thought 'I detect hints of Jaime/Brienne/Addam' you'd not be wrong, and there may be a follow up piece that dwells on that, but if that's not your flavor of tea, then you can enjoy the baseline of this fic! 
> 
> Also, in case anyone is curious, I _do_ have plans for my Soulmate verse(s), and my Makeup verse, as well as several bigger projects, but right now is somewhat complicated time and I just need to keep reminding myself I _can_ write and finish things, so I write these smaller pieces instead. (Though they're never the bite-size I intend them to be.)


End file.
